A gas flare in the industry such as petroleum refineries, natural gas processing (natural gas fracking) plants as well as natural gas drilling stations raises a significant public health concern. Formation of black smoke from incompletely combusted hydrocarbon compounds and other mixes including known carcinogens such as BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene and xylene) become major pollutants threatening our living environment. A flame is also another major concern in the plants when the gases are ambient because of possible explosion.
As an example, the process for removing water from fracked natural gas uses a liquid desiccant (ethylene glycol derivatives). The desiccant is contacted with wet natural gas and it removes the water from the natural gas until it is saturated. The water saturated liquid desiccant is heated to separate the water vapors and the desiccant liquid. The dry desiccant is recycled and the steam is condensed. The fugitive gases from the water condensation contain primarily methane with trace amounts of Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl benzene and Xylene which must be destroyed. Conventionally these gases are vented or burned in a flame-flare as described above. Because the flare produces oxides of nitrogen, they are under scrutiny by the EPA.
What is needed, therefore, is an apparatus and method for destroying methane and entrained BTEX contaminates, and to more fully combust hydrocarbon compounds in industrial environments with no flame.